


holding on

by killaidanturner



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6137726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killaidanturner/pseuds/killaidanturner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he dreams, he dreams of Jakku, of the sand moving like waves beneath his feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	holding on

The first thing he feels is fire, a burning sensation down his back. His muscles pull and stretch under his skin. He feels as if he has nothing left, as if his body is working to pull the last pieces of himself apart. 

 

* * *

Pain. Agony. Hurt. They’re all words that he learned but thinks that he didn’t feel until now, until his body is working against him, succumbing to a gash up his spine.

 

* * *

He wakes again, this time it’s for longer, this time his eyes are open long enough to take in bright lights, the smell of disinfectant. Everything is white.

 

He feels his heart rate pick up as he listens to the machines hooked into his veins and on his skin. He tugs at the IVs the way that there’s something tugging at his heart, telling him that he’s missing something. 

 

The pain is unbearable when he reaches across to pull one of the machines off of him. His eyes close once more. 

 

* * *

When he dreams, he dreams of Jakku, of the sand moving like waves beneath his feet. Poe is in front of him in his flight suit, his brown jacket in shreds in his hands. 

 

“I ruined it.” Finn’s voice is quiet as he looks at the fraying fabric. How the strands fall into the sand like rain. The earth swallows them up, a gaping chasm asking for more. Poe drops the jacket in the hole, they both watch as it disappears into blackness. 

 

Finn’s hands shake, they shake until the sky shifts different hues above him. Dusk to dark to black. They shake until his eyes are opening and he’s staring once more at white lights. 

 

* * *

He doesn’t speak. When he is asked how he is doing he gives a blank stare. It reminds him of before, before he rescued,  _ rescued?  _ Finn thinks to himself, an odd word to correlate with himself, before he rescued Poe. 

 

The white on the walls matches the white of a storm trooper suit and Finn tries his hardest not to make the comparison. 

 

Being silent reminds him of the Order. The more he thinks this, the more he retreats into himself, the more he hates the color white. 

 

* * *

He’s told that Rey is gone, that she has the map and has gone after Luke Skywalker. That she may be the galaxy's only hope.

 

Hope. 

 

He thinks that word is fitting for her. Rey who smiles brighter than any sun he has ever seen. Rey who has held onto that word her whole life and cradled it close. It feels like the word was specifically made for her, that the universe etched it onto the lines on her hands and told her to hold on tightly.

 

* * *

He sits in his bed, a stiff thing, but still more comfortable than what he is used to. He sits with his back straights as his muscles scream for relaxation. His skin is healing, is scaring and during iridescent against him. It’s a big ugly thing and Finn thinks that’s it what he deserves. That he would take that gash, that open wound to his skin once more if it meant that he could save everyone.

 

A feeling spreads in his chest, crawls it’s way out of his heart and expands up to his collarbones at this. 

 

_You’re different, you’re different, you’re different._ He repeats this in his head as his eyes lock onto the white walls, until he can longer stay away and the galaxy is spinning white.

 

* * *

“They say you haven’t spoken.” Poe stands in the doorway, his hands unsteady at his sides.

 

Finn looks up at him. His hair is pushed back, a curl has fallen out of place and is resting on his forehead.

 

“Not talking to me either then?” 

 

Finn looks away and keeps his eyes focused straight ahead. It doesn’t stop Poe, who instead is walking to the side of the bed, pulling up a chair and taking a seat. He rests his arms on the side of the bed, his hands reaching out to Finn’s.

 

His breath catches when he feels warm fingertips running circles on his knuckles. 

 

“What you did was really brave. You may not think it, you may think that you’ve spent your whole life under Kylo Ren’s rule and that standing up to him once is nothing but it’s not. It was something. I,” Poe takes a breath, his eyes looking off into the distance the way that Finn’s tend to do, “I know what he is like. You know that. You should know that out of anyone here that I understand on some level.”

 

Finn finally looks at Poe, looks at his dark eyes that shine like warp speed in the bright light of his medical room. 

 

“I still could have done things differently.” 

 

“You saved me, you saved Rey,”

 

Finn cuts him off, “she saved herself, and she saved me.” 

 

Poe smiles weakly at him, his hands tightening around Finn’s fingers. “And I’m glad every day for it.” 

 

* * *

Poe visits him every day, and every day Finn can feel a spark igniting somewhere within himself. When Poe reaches out and his hands trace the outline of Finn’s jaw, he whispers to Poe, “you know, you saved me as well.”

 

Poe lets his hand drop as he looks at Finn’s smooth complexion, at the perfection of his skin and wonders what the scaring on his back must look like in comparison. He thinks that he’ll still be beautiful.

 

“And not just this, not just getting me to talk again when I was too far into my own mind. You saved me when we first met. You’re always saving me.” Finn smiles as he sits atop his white sheets, atop his city of clouds with his white cotton walls. 

 

“You remind me of fireflies.” 

 

It takes a moment to register what he just said. It’s not what he was expecting but then again, he can never figure out what to expect from Poe. 

 

“Fireflies. When I was younger my mother told me that they stole the lights from the sky, that they grabbed the stars and held their light tightly and that is why they glowed.” 

 

Finn looks at him curiously, his head tilting to the side. 

 

“You stole the light from the sky and hold it in your eyes, don’t ever let it go.” 

 

* * *

The jacket has a matching scar down the center of it. It’s been patched up but Finn can still see the stitching on the line, how it lines up perfectly when the marking on his flesh. He likes it this way. When he puts it on, the fabric gripping his arms tightly, he smiles to himself and thinks, _ I’m holding on. _

  
  
  



End file.
